Round and Round and Round We Go

I'm a tweaker. No, not that kind of tweaker, I'm a post tweaker, by which I mean that I tweak my posts, not that I'm a consumer of recreational stimulants. I'm sorry to bother you with this but due to the fact my readership has snowballed (there are literally tens of people reading my work) I feel that I must be transparent about how I do things so as not to violate the trust of my readers. The fact is, I don't hesitate to make changes to anything you'll find written here.

Why? Kaizen. No, that's not a battle cry (KAI-ZEN!) it's a philosophy, and an attitude of sorts. I define it as continuous tweaking, the purpose of which is continuous improvement. I'll spare you a lecture on the who/what/when/where/why of the word because it would be boring and besides, I'm eminently unqualified to do so.

Let's just define it as a Japanese business philosophy that posits that continuous improvements (tweaking) are one of the best ways to deal with one of life's immutable laws, rust never sleeps. Toyota is really good at this sort of thing, I try to be. I don't think twice about changing my words around if I think that a given change enhances clarity or meaning, or might be funnier. So if you should have occasion to reread something you found here and it's different, well, don't be alarmed, it's me, not you.

Finally, it may be worth your while to reread anything you happened to have liked in the past, it might be better. It might not, but then you can rant about what a hoople-head I am. Kick me, spare your dog.

In my personal version of Kaizen, facts are very important. Sometimes, what is written in stone may turn out to be false and may require the services of your stone carver of choice for updates. However inconvenient this may be there's no way around it, not if you believe, as I do, that continually tweaking facts to reflect reality as it is, not as what we'd like it to be, is of the utmost importance.

I would like to rent a larger, nicer house than the one I do but if I refuse to acknowledge that I'm living in the best house I can currently afford, I risk creating a downward spiral that could end with me living in the back of my van. Though the van is paid for, my house is more comfortable and has a bathroom.

Now, when I, my snifficant others and/or the other kids on the playground have to hammer out how we're going to solve a given problem or deal with a given phenomenon, trying to agree on the facts of the matter is the place to start. If we can't agree on what's actually going on, we can't agree on a rational course of action or a solution.

The Donald, the preferred presidential candidate of wrestling and reality show fans everywhere, has assured himself, at the very least, a place in American history in part by exploiting recent violent tragedies perpetrated by illegal immigrants. He, along with our who needs context when there's blood in the water media, often ignore one inconvenient fact.

Multiple studies (feel free to google among yourselves) have come to the conclusion that immigrants, legal or not, are less likely to commit crimes of all sorts, than the natives. Round and Round and Round we go.

So, are cops deliberately killing African Americans? Is the Black Lives Matter movement correct in asserting that they are and that this justifies people chanting, "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon," during protest marches? We don't know.

There are no legally mandated national reporting requirements for the FBI to create a database to try and answer the question. This doesn't prevent people on either side of the question from quoting from what statistics there are in order to promote their cause. But not only do we not truly know, there's no objective effort underway to find out, at least that I'm aware of. Round and Round and Round we go.

We do know that African-Americans, roughly 13% of the population of the US, commit slightly more than half of all murders and that they are mostly killing other black folks. More than 90% of murdered African-Americans are killed by other African-Americans.

Obviously, the average black citizen is just as unlikely to be a killer as the average white citizen, considerably less than 1% of the 13% I would think. Finding a solution to this factual problem would seem to be of benefit to both blacks and whites. So what. If you bring it up you're a racist if you're white, and if you're black, an uncle Tom. Round and Round and Round we go, where we stop, nobody knows.

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." John Adams

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

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©2015 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to react (way cooler than liking) -- please scroll down.

      

The Denali/McKinley Controversy

There has been much passionate debate, wailing, teeth gnashing, rending of garments and the like over a seemingly endless controversy that has divided the nation since 1975.

The denizens of King Crank's Lair -- myself and my cadre of semi-loyal followers (you are no doubt familiar with the phrase, ...like herding cats) -- being residents of Mr. McKinleys Ohio (well, technically) are no exception. Personally, my unwavering position is written in stone -- one way or another, I don't care. I've maintained this position consistently since I first became aware there was a controversy, a few hours ago.

Being a self-identified current events junkie (see Introduction) I've been aware of the impending name change for a couple of days or so. I realize, however, that many of you, having an actual life, may be completely unaware of not only the name change but the controversy behind it as well.

Not to worry. In keeping with this blog's theoretical mission statement (by which I mean there is no actual mission statement but hey, it could happen) I present the following in the spirit of public service.

The Mount McKinley moniker was chosen by William Dickey, an explorer from Seattle who was leading some gold prospectors around and "discovered" a huge mountain. When Mr. Dickey and his buds returned to the lower 48 (do you suppose that the Hawaiians ever refer to the mainland as the eastern 48? I'm just askin'...) he wrote an article for the New York Sun newspaper about his adventures in the Klondike gold rush.

He states in his article that the first news he heard on the way out of the wilderness was that William McKinley had been nominated by the Republicrats to be president. He states that "we" decided to name the mountain after the nominee, meaning that he and his buds, based on no authority that I can find, took it upon themselves to re-name the largest mountain in North America.

Rename? Yup. According to Wikipedia, the Indians that lived there called it Denali. A German, Ferdinand von Wrangel, who ran things in Alaska for the Russians for a minute named it Tenada. The commonly used name, by the Russians, was Bolshaya Gora (big mountain). The first English name was Densmore's Mountain, Mr. Densmore being a local gold prospector. There are even more names available, but we'll stick with the more commonly used ones.

There's even an unconfirmable, but generally accepted story, that Mr. Dickey, an advocate of a gold monetary standard, named the mountain after McKinley (also a supporter of the gold standard) to mess with the heads of a bunch of prospectors he knew that supported McKinley's Depublican opponent and famous proponent of a silver standard, William Jennings Bryan.

A couple of US Geological Service reports in the early 1900s used the name Mount McKinley and when President Mckinley was assassinated in 1901, to honor him, Congress officially named the mountain after him -- 16 years later.

If the Depublicans had put that much work into Obamacare we'd have a system like Singapore's. That's how things stood until all hell broke loose in 1975. Well, maybe only a suburb of hell, certainly not center city hell.

The local Alaskan officials in charge of such things petitioned the federal officials in charge of such things to change the name back to what the Indians, who were there first after all, called the mountain -- Denali.

Into the breach stepped Ralph Straus Regula. Mr. Regula was a congressperson that proudly represented the people of Canton, Ohio from 1973 to 2009. President McKinley, though born in Niles, Ohio moved to Canton after the Civil War and the rest is, well, history.

Oh, before I forget, there's a very nice memorial in Niles that's well worth a visit if you're into that sort of thing. Also, you can visit his restored childhood home that's on the main street of town, just a few blocks from the memorial.

I just spent an all-nighter trying to find out why no one seems to care that apparently the McKinleys were the first people in the world to have a house covered with vinyl siding but I can find no mention of this fact anywhere. Rest assured I will not rest until I get to the bottom of this.

Sorry...where was I? Oh yeah, Mr. Regula. The congressperson, despite having a productive career in Congress, managed to find the time to block the name change by a series of procedural maneuvers over the years. Personally, I think a more productive use of his time would've been finding a way to change the official spelling of the word maneuvers; but you have to choose your battles and Mr. Regula was determined that President McKinley should retain the honor bestowed by Congress and fought valiantly to prevent the denaming of the mountain.

He persevered in spite of the fact Mr. McKinley had never visited Alaska or is even linked to the state or it's majestic mountain in any particular way. Well, he was the president of the country it was part of. At the time of his death, there were about 60,000 souls living in the Last Frontier, that's about the size of The Jewel of the Midwest -- Warren, Ohio (right up the road from Niles), before the local economy collapsed and they lost a few folks (20,000, more or less).

The Gubmint never sleeps. President Obama, consistent in his policy to ignore Congress whenever he knows he's right, engineered the denaming to create a sort of commercial for a three-day global warming road show in Alaska; Rob Portman, Senator (R.-OH), has reportedly issued no less than five tweets in protest.

Keep up the good work guys. Incidentally, denaming is the official technical term for changing the name of a national landmark back to one of the names it had before it had an official US Gubmint name.

By the way, it's Denali, not Mount Denali because Denali translates as, "The Big One" or "The High One" so it would be like calling it Mount The Big One or Mount The High One. Apparently, the local Indians weren't particularly creative when it came to naming things. But considering that Alaska was one of the first states to decriminalize weed, they may have been somewhat prescient.

 Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2017 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to react (way cooler than liking) -- please scroll down.

Marvin the Martian

Recently, Holman Jenkins, in his Business World column in the Wall Street Journal, wrote a piece entitled "Tesla is a Compliance Company." His point was that Elon Musk's electric car company is not based on an entrepreneur identifying or creating a market for a product or service and then getting rich, or at least make a living, by supplying that product or service (the traditional free-market route).

He maintains that Tesla generates cash flow by exploiting the system of Gubmint subsidies (carrots) and mandates (the club stick) designed to get us to buy electric cars and save the world from the alleged menace of global warming, and I agree. But that's not what I want to talk about.

I went looking for Mr. Musk's incentives and motivations. Is he in it for the money? Mr. Musk made his first fortune when he and his brother put together a web software company called Zip2 (that no longer exists) and when it was sold off he pocketed $22,000,000.  Personally, I would've retired at this point and assumed the lifestyle I was born for: rich dilettante.

You see, regression therapy has enabled me to discover that I was kidnaped by gypsies as an infant from my wealthy but dissolute family that ultimately refused to pay my ransom (it's complicated) and I was eventually won by my "father" in a poker game in the Gem Saloon in Deadwood, SD.

When he sobered up the next day he realized his mistake. Being a house painter with a large family and a modest income, the last thing he needed was another kid to feed. But his wife (my "mother") and some of his other kids thought I was cute and convinced him to keep me. But that's not what I want to talk about.

Mr. Musk, now a nouveau riche techie, spent about half of his first fortune to become a co-founder of what eventually became PayPal. When the smoke cleared this time he walked away, at the ripe old age of 32, with $165,000,000. But that's not what I want to talk about.

A few years later Mr. Musk invested in, and eventually gained control of, Tesla Motors. To stay busy during the interim, he created SpaceX, a company that delivers supplies to the International Space Station via SpaceX designed and built rockets. But that's not what I want to talk about.

What I want to talk about is why Mr. Musk started SpaceX. It wasn't because he's one of those moguls that can't ever make enough money. It was to fulfill a dream. He believes, as do I, that to survive man needs to find a way to colonize other planets.

 This is not original to him, and certainly not to me -- any number of other dreamers have come to the same conclusion by varied paths for various reasons. Mr. Musk, however, decided to do something about it. The purpose of SpaceX is to lower the cost of, and advance the technology needed to, eventually, colonize Mars. How cool is that!

A theoretical reader erupts. "COLONIZE MARS! Have you lost your mind Pufendorf! (a former nom de plume...). We're up to our ass in alligators because someone forgot to drain the swamp and you want to... ."

"HEY, hey! settle down," replies the Pufenator, in a forceful but nevertheless gentlemanly tone.

Let me explain.

I believe that individuals (as well as personkind for that matter) function best, are more alive, more -- human -- when they are striving for goals, large and small. I also believe that having shared goals takes some of the edge off of our endless struggle to get along with others. This applies to our relationships with snifficant others as well as to all the other kids on the playground.

Mr. Musk wants to go to Mars (and beyond) because, as the Discovery channel never seems to tire of pointing out, there are no shortage of potential catastrophes capable of providing us with the same fate as our late lamented friends, the dinosaurs.

Also, what if the reason we've yet to be contacted by another race, in a universe large enough to make even a Super Sized WallyWorld look small, is because it's common for a given species to be obliterated before they can spread to another planet?

I want to go to Mars and beyond because there's something in it for almost all the kids on the playground and any goal that can pull people together in these fragmented times is certainly worth consideration.

Gaia worshiping climate warriors, cricket eaters, and tree huggers would welcome a chance for Mother Earth to rid herself of some of her ungrateful parasites.

Far right, freedom obsessed wingnuts could live on a planet that features limited gubmint, where the locals get to create all the rules not specifically mentioned in the Cosmic Constitution (crazy huh?). When Texas was a country people from the US in need of a geographical cure could paint GTT, gone to Texas, on their houses and discretely vacate the neighborhood. GTT could now mean gone to Tralfamadore.

There's never a shortage of people who want to get out of Dodge.

And if you elect to stay you could help tear down all the abandoned houses in your neighborhood and fill the empty lots with gardens, already a popular pastime in certain areas of Flyoverland.

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2015 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to react (way cooler than liking) -- please scroll down.